


the long and winding road

by welshwriter



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:00:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26252305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/welshwriter/pseuds/welshwriter
Summary: The 1st of September, 1971. Hallowe'en, 1972. Christmas, 1973. New Year's Eve, 1974. Valentine's Day, 1975. Easter, 1976. The Summer Solstice, 1977.The story of seven Gryffindors over seven years - their successes and defeats, the love and the loss - as a war brews just outside their castle home.
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 3
Kudos: 3





	the long and winding road

On the 1st of July, 1971, letters arrive in the houses of eleven-year-olds up and down the country. Most are delivered by owl, landing in front of the child in question as they eat their morning cereal; some are delivered by the postman, looking curiously at the beautifully composed and oddly specific addresses; some still are delivered by adults wearing brightly coloured robes and pointed hats, introducing themselves as professors at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and asking politely if they might have a cup of tea.

Only one is delivered by Professor Albus Dumbledore himself.

  
Remus is a quiet, thoughtful young boy, who assures his parents that he is just as happy in an armchair reading as he would be with children his own age. It's where he can be found on any overcast afternoon, enjoying a cup of tea and a packet of chocolate hobnobs and absent-mindedly picking holes in his jumper. It's where Albus Dumbledore knows he could be found nearing tea-time on a random Tuesday at the beginning of summer.

Remus hears the crack of apparition at the end of the drive, but barely glances up from his book. "Mam!" he yells. "Dad's home."

"He's only at the bottom of the garden, love. He's growing something - oh, I don't know what."

"Wiggentree," Remus says. "Someone's at the door, then."

"Alright, stay put, I'm coming."

His mother walks through the living room, ruffling his hair as she walks past. Remus peers past her shoulder with interest at the man standing in the doorway and freezes in his seat when he sees a man he recognises only from the books lining his window sill. 

"Yes?" Hope says, wiping her hands on her paint-spattered apron. "How can I help you?"

"Good afternoon," Dumbledore says. He is tall and thin, the deep purple of his robes striking against the grey backdrop of the sky. "My name is Albus Dumbledore, and I've come to deliver your son's letter of acceptance to Hogwarts."

Hope darts a panicked glance at Remus, who sits up straighter in his chair. "Let me - let me get my husband," she says. "Remus - don't -" She bites her lip, then says in an undertone, "Don't _do_ anything."

Remus hasn't the slightest idea what she expects he might do, but before he can ask for clarification, she has hurried out of the backdoor. 

Remus' _condition_ \- only ever referred to in hushed tones and euphemisms - means that the Lupin family has spent the previous five years moving from town to village to decrepit old farmhouse in the back of beyond of the Welsh countryside. As much as they all had worked to make it cosy, the building is all low ceilings and damp stone. Dumbledore has to stoop to step through the door. 

"Good afternoon, Remus."

Remus nods. He isn't sure what one says to the most powerful wizard of the era. After a moment's thought, he tries, "Would you like some tea?"

Dumbledore bows his head, his eyes twinkling. "Very much so. Jasmine, if you have it."

They don't have it, so Remus tries for an ordinary black tea, with a geranium picked from the window sill flower box floating on the top. When he returns to the living room, holding the dodgy cup of tea, Dumbledore has already seated himself on the sofa opposite Remus' chair. The fire is blazing despite the summer, and Dumbledore is examining a set of gobstones set out on the coffee table.

"My favourite game. Thank you," he says, accepting the tea. Remus watches nervously as he sips it, but Dumbledore only sighs. "Perfect."

"Do you want to play?" he asks, gesturing towards the gobstones, and this is how his parents found the, a few minutes later, both red-faced and panting and clearly terrified of the bizarre old man with whom they had entrusted their son. Remus looks up at them, smiling. 

"Remus can't go to Hogwarts," Lyall blurts in a rush, unnerved by Dumbledore's steady gaze. "He can't."

"Oh, I think you'll find he can."

As Dumbledore explains his plans patiently, carefully, Remus can feel a heat creep up his face, a combination of feverish excitement and embarrassment that so much work has been put in for him alone. For a brief moment, he imagines it - climbing onto the Hogwarts Express, a school full of people his age, real lessons, more than just a life spent in his armchair reading quiet alongside his father. His shining, grateful eyes are trained on Dumbledore.

Lyall shakes his head sternly. "Absolutely not. Absolutely _not_. He will not be going."

"Mr Lupin," Dumbledore says. "I can only assure you that every precaution will be taken to keep your son safe. He will be safer and happier at Hogwarts than, I suspect, he would be anywhere else in the world."

"Dad," Remus says softly. Lyall wouldn't quite look at him. "Please. Fi mwyn mynd. Fi angen mynd. Nai neu unrhywbeth, unrhywbeth." Welsh is a language special to Lyall and Remus. It died out in Hope's family two or three generations before Hope herself was born into an ordinary, city-based family in Cardiff, but Welsh is an ancient language, full of powerful magic, and it was passed from mother to son, always, in Lyall's family.

"No," Lyall says. "No."

Dumbledore hesitates, then nods. "I understand. But if you change your mind," he goes on, addressing Remus, "You have until the 31st of July to decide. Just send me an owl." He nods again and stands. "Well, I've wasted enough of your afternoon. I really must be getting on. Thank you for the tea, Remus."

At the other end of the country, miles and miles to the east, where the accents are just as indecipherable but the road signs monolingual, at least, another teacher is leaving a future student's house. This professor is young-ish and merry, her cheeks ruddy and her fingernails perpetually dirty and twigs and leaves stuck in her mass of curly hair.

Grinning, Professor Sprout waves goodbye from the end of the garden path. "Lovely to meet you!" she beams at the young red-headed girl, who's watching her leave open-mouthed. "Looking forward to seeing you in September."

Lily nods wordlessly and jumps when the stranger disappears with a crack. She watches the space where Professor Sprout had been, then turns slowly to face her parents, who are sat at the kitchen table, just as shocked as she is. She sits down opposite them, waiting. 

"Well... That's that, then," says Jack Evans.

"That's what?" Sadie Evans asks sharply.

"Well, I suppose we ought to..." He gestures uncertainly. "Take you to London. See if this... Alley place is real. That's one way to decide what's going on, isn't it?"

"Jack," her mother says, dismayed. "There's no way it can be safe. What if it's a cult? What if we're all abducted or killed?"

"Well, Lily can do magic," he replies, although he doesn't sound confident. "Can't you?"

Lily can. In fact, she had been half-expecting this day for some time. At first, she couldn't explain it - childhood cuts and bruises healing before her eyes, flowers sprouting in the pavement cracks on cheerful walks home from school, Petunia's hairbrush disappearing right out of her hand when Lily was particularly annoyed with her. When she was nine, she had read _Matilda_ and, breath held, had made the book float right in front of her eyes. With her parents waiting eyes trained on her, she bites her lips and focuses on the glass of water sat between them. At first the water starts to tremble, then the glass until, with a pop, it floats in mid-air. Her mother gasps. Her father nods.

"Well, then. That's settled. What would everyone like for tea?"

Lily looks out of the window into the grey day, still worrying her lip, and wonders if her mysterious, grumpy friend had also received the letter he had been so confident he would.

James Potter goes to bed smiling, his belly full of celebratory roast and no fewer than three helpings of pudding. His letter was met with a manly slap on the back from his father and the promise of a new broomstick. 

"Now, not too excited, Jamie," his mother says, a tall, willowy woman who point-blank refuses her husband's hair potion and whose greying curls are carefully styled to hang around her face. "You still have weeks to spend at home."

"We'll take you to Diagon Alley as soon as we get a chance," Fleamont continues, winking conspiratorially. "See if we can't give you a head start at Hogwarts, eh?"

"You'll do no such thing," Euphemia says, cuffing his head lightly, but James ignores them both, still reading and re-reading the letter. _Hogwarts,_ he thought, only ever having seen it at a distance, while Christmas shopping with his parents in Hogsmeade. _Hogwarts,_ where he would live the life his parents had promised him for year - feasts and midnight adventures, endless Quidditch and, it seems to James, very little studying at all.

"Nothing like Ilvermony, of course," Fleamont says, having grown up in Manhattan.

"I should hope not," Euphemia replies. James wanders away to tell his pet pygmy puff the good news while his parents argue playfully. 

The trip to Diagon Alley is an extended family affair, his mother and father, his aunt and uncle, his cousin Emilie and even his elder, grumpier cousins, Alessandra and Dominic. The Zabinis are a proud and universally beautiful family, and James finds them to be utterly boring. He far prefers his American side of the family, as much as his mother finds them to be exhausting.

He tears ahead in Diagon Alley, ready to spend several happy hours browsing the sweet shops, when Euphemia catches the neck of his cloak, pulling him back. "You can have one hour," she says sternly, "And I want you to meet me at Ollivander's at exactly three o'clock. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Mum, alright," he replies, thinking of the gold coins weighing down his pocket.

"You are not to leave Diagon Alley. And you are not to leave your cousins' sides."

"Oh, _Mum_ ," he says, looking at his haughty elder cousins with disgust, just they start a chorus of complaints in tandem.

"I came to meet my friends!"

"My girlfriend's waiting for me!"

"I can't be seen taking care of a couple of snotty kids!"

"I have shopping to do!"

"Alright, fine," Euphemia says, cutting them off before they can work themselves up anymore. "Fine, fine. But you'd better not let Emilie out of your sight, James Potter."

So James sets off into Diagon Alley, followed only by his quiet, dreamy cousin. They barely walk twenty paces when she tugs on his sleeve. "Can we go to the Magical Menagerie?"

"You and fucking animals," James says. As part of his preparations for Hogwarts, James decides to learn how to swear, although he was still only practising on Emilie. "Fine, but I'm not coming inside." 

"Fine."

"And you have to come to Quidditch Supplies afterwards."

"Then the sweet shop? I heard they have new ice cream flavours."

"Deal."

"Deal."

They shake on it. James waits patiently outside the Magical Menagerie for the better part of half an hour, at first leaning against a wall and doing his best to look cool then, when his legs are tired, sitting on the floor with his chin resting on his knees and watching people walk by, the streets crowded just as they always are as all of wizarding Britain prepare to send their children off to school for another year. 

Just as he is about to give up and drag Emilie out - she had probably just befriended another spotted horklump or something equally horrible - a girl comes to stand beside him, apparently not noticing him, looking into the shop window with an open mouth.

James frowns at them, wondering how both she and her parents could be so clearly astounded by a miniature bicorn, when it dawns on him. 

"Oh my God," he says. "Are you _muggles_?"

The girl blinks at him. "What on earth is that?"

"You _are_ ," he says, ignoring her question and looking in amazement at their weird clothes. He would be embarrassed, if he were them, barely wearing their underthings, let alone anything resembling a robe. "What's it like?"

"What's what like?" she replies, looking defensive and possibly threatening. James is lucky when Emilie steps out of the shop before he can say anything else. 

"Emilie! Em! Over here. Look, this lot are _muggles_." 

Emilie hesitates at the three strangers now looking at her. "Don't be rude," she says in a half-whisper to James, coming to stand just a little bit behind him as if her cousin, who stood at about a foot shorter than her, could shield her from these strangers. 

"I'm not being rude, it's not like it's a bad thing or anything, I'm just saying look at her, look at what she's wearing! She's a muggle."

The girl blushes furiously, at odds with her dark red hair. 

"I'm James," James goes on, not noticing or not caring how the girl is glaring at him. "This is Emilie. She's shy, but you can ask her anything about animals. Who are you?"

"Lily," the girl says. After narrowing her eyes at James a last time, she peers up at Emilie. "You know about these animals?"

Emilie nods. "I wouldn't get a bicorn, unless you want their skin shedding for potions. They're not very friendly."

"Have you been to Diagon Alley before?" James asks.

"No," Lily says. "We're a bit - um. We're a bit stuck."

"Emilie and I will show you around, don't worry about it," he offers cheerfully, the chance to spend time with bona fide muggles outweighing even a happy hour spent assessing the newest Quidditch gear. Unfortunately, he finds he has misjudged the nature of eleven-year-old girls; Emilie and Lily wander away, arm in arm, Emilie patiently explaining everything within sight while Lily tells her how much she likes her robes. Or something. Tactfully, they leave Jack and Sadie Evans in a tea shop, and James can't even quiz them on muggle hair products, for example, or modes of transport.

Instead, he slopes behind Emilie and Lily grumpily as they chat. The questions Lily asks get increasingly inane - why she needed a cauldron, why so many owls were on sale, how exactly she was going to get to Hogwarts. When she asks what Quidditch is, however, James feels she's taking the whole thing a bit far.

"Don't tell me you don't have _Quidditch_ ," he says, aghast, pushing between the two girls.

"She's a muggle born, James," Emilie says, as if this explains everything. 

"The Chudley Cannons? The Holyhead Harpies?" Then, a little bit nervously, his own team. "The Wimbourne Wasps? Come on, you must have at least heard of the Wimbourne Wasps."

"Are you an idiot?" Lily asks crisply. James scowls, and falls out of step with them once more. 

"No." 

He refuses to explain anything to them when they finally end up in Quality Quidditch Supplies. He focuses on taking a thorough look through the inventory and tries hard not to listen to Emilie's botched explanations of the game as they follow him from quaffle to snitch. But by the time they circle back to meet the Potter-Zabini family, James has cheered up immensely, clutching two paper bags filled with sweets.

"Dad, I've decided on my broom," he says through a mouthful of fudge, and Emilie introduces Lily to the family. "She's a muggle born," he adds helpfully. "And she doesn't know what Quidditch is." 

"James!" his aunt says, a much louder version of her daughter's admonishments. "Don't embarrass the poor girl."

But Lily, armed with her newfound knowledge from her newfound friend, only smiles. "Don't worry, I'm not embarrassed."

"Yes, well," says Emilie's mother. "Don't announce that to all of Hogwarts before you've even got there, will you, dear?"

" _Mum_ ," Emilie hisses, embarrassed, but Clara Zabini only tuts. 

"Anyway, I'd better find my family. Bye, Emilie."

"Bye, Lily!"

They hug and make plans to find each other on the train, Lily promising to bring a muggle book on Scottish animals and Emilie promising to bring nail varnish that would always perfectly compliment one's outfit. 

"Oi, that's my nail varnish," Alessandra cuts in. Emilie, immeasurably more comfortable with her family and at constant war with her sister, spins around to argue that Auntie Euphemia got it for both of them, _actually_ , and so what if her fingernails were always too dirty to wear it, maybe she'll want to wear it to the feast, etc. etc.

"Bye, James," Lily says. James takes several steps back lest she get any ideas about hugging him as well.

"Yeah, bye. See you at Hogwarts."

He watches her leave, almost skipping away, and wonders why he almost wishes she wouldn't go.

"So what broom did you decide on, son?" His father's voice barely pulls him out of his reverie. 

"Hm? What?"

Fleamont roars with laughter and claps James on the back so hard he stumbles forward a few steps. "Had your head turned already, have you?"

James and Emilie make twin noises of disgust. " _Gross,_ Dad." and "James! That's my new friend! Stay away from her!"

Still chuckling, Fleamont pushes his son forward, directing him towards Quality Quidditch Supplies. "Owl me in a few years, and we'll see what you have to say then."

The night before he leaves for Hogwarts, his trunk waiting neatly by the front door, Peter's mother suggests he might like to stay at home instead. He was already sent to bed, nice and early, his stomach fizzing with excitement as he tries not to focus on the idea that this would be the last time he's tucked up in bed, in his tidy little bedroom in his tidy little house, until Christmas. He tries not to focus on any of it too hard - the train or the feast or the classes or his housemates or any of it. If he doesn't look at any of it directly, he can instead just be quietly excited.

He's a little bit tempted when his mother creeps into his room. It's late, but he's been staring at the light under his doorway blankly while his heart pounds with no chance of sleep. His mother pushes open the door gently, holding two hot cocoas in her hands.

"Peter? Are you asleep?"

She sits at the end of his bed, and they sip their drinks quietly, the weight of the following morning almost oppressive.

"You don't have to go," she says finally. "I'm sure we could sort something out."

Peter nods. She goes to bed, and they don't mention it again.

Marlene McKinnon marches through King's Cross like she's made this journey a dozen times, instead of exactly zero. Her parents have to hurry to keep up, carrying all her worldly belongings for her. 

"This one, yeah?" she asks, gesturing towards the appropriate brick wall but walking straight through it without waiting for their answers.

Generally speaking, the McKinnons don't travel to Hogwarts by train, being an ancient Scottish family. The notion of travelling to London really for any reason, let alone to travel back up to Scotland, is absurd. It is, at least, until Marlene's letter arrived, and she decides that she wants not only to travel on the Hogwarts Express, but also for her parents to take her to see London beforehand. "To make the trip worthwhile, of course," she explains, and Marlene - bundle of joy that she is - is not to be disagreed with.

She saw everything that caught her fancy, even venturing into muggle London once or twice, before her parents realised she was gone and dragged her back to their room in the Leaky Cauldron. A wide selection of new books sit at the bottom of her trunk, each of which she carefully examined before persuading her parents to buy it, arguing forcefully in favour of its purchase at even a whiff of opposition. Using this method, she has also secured a brand new set of eagle feather quills, a camera and accompanying photo album, and a rather fetching new hat.

"Well, I suppose this is it," she says, turning to her parents amongst the hustle and bustle of the platform.

"You'll write every week?"

"Of course. I think that would be appropriate."

"Oh, come here, you silly wee thing," and Marlene is pulled unwillingly into a tight hug from her mother. 

" _Mum_ ," she protests, only to be subjected to the same from her father.

"You might be a big grown up now, but you'll never be too grown up for your mum and dad."

"Alright, alright, enough. _God_."

"You be good now, do you hear me?"

She shakes her parents off and huffs. 

"And you'll owl us tomorrow morning? Tell us about the feast and the sorting hat?"

"Fine, fine, fine! I promise. Can I go now?"

"Don't get into too much trouble!" This is called at her retreating back as she boards the train and, as much as she would like to sulk, she slid quickly into a compartment and presses her face up against the window to wave goodbye at her smiling parents. Once they were pulling out of the station, and drab suburban London was rushing past the window, she mutters to herself, "Right," and turns to face the rest of the compartment. 

There is only one small boy - Marlene might be ballsy, but she isn't brave enough to push into a compartment filled with hulking sixth years - who was watching her with an air of vague disinterest. 

"Your a McKinnon."

Marlene frowns, examining the boy - Asian, maybe Japanese, she thinks, wearing expensive-looking robes and glossy hair falling in waves to his shoulders - but she can't tell what family he might come from. "Yes. So?" she says. "How can you tell?"

"Your robes."

"Oh." Despite buying no fewer than three muggle outfits for her trip to London, her parents made her wear her family tartan robes to the Hogwarts Express. "Yes. Well." She sits opposite him, deciding that this boy was as good as any to start getting to know people. "I'm Marlene. Who are you?"

"Sirius Black."

" _Oh_." Her eyes widen slightly. "I've heard about your family. You live in that house in London, don't you?"

"Yes," he replies. "And you live in that horrible castle in Scotland, don't you?"

Marlene frowns. She has called the castle worse than that her whole life, but she isn't sure how she feels about a stranger saying it. "My dad says that your family is involved in really bad stuff. Really dark magic."

"I heard your aunt's a squib."

This time, Marlene scowls. Instinctively she reaches for the wand in her pocket, as if she has any idea how to use it. "So?"

Sirius shrugs. "Just saying."

"Yeah, well, don't ever talk about my auntie. Alright? Or I'll throw you off this train." She can feel a flush rise to her cheeks, righteous anger and a little bit humiliated.

Sirius shrugs again. "Alright."

"You're horrible." Marlene stands abruptly and leaves the compartment.

Sirius watches her leave, his expression still unfathomable. 

The journey to Hogwarts takes hours and hours, but Sirius barely moves. He had thought, after another big bust up with his mother - this one major, after he was caught sneaking back into the house carrying a bag of cheap muggle literature he had found on a long walk through the city - that he would feel better as the train pulls further and further away from his family home. The train window vibrates painfully against his forehead, but he doesn't look away as the rolling hills drift past. He doesn't look up at the delighted shouts and conversation on the other side of the compartment door, and he only waves away the trolley lady. He falls into some sort of trance as the hours tick by, not quite asleep but neither wholly awake. 

Gradually, he comes to acknowledge that they're sliding past lakes and mountains rather than streams and endless hills. Night is coming on fast, and Sirius realises they must be arriving soon. He changes into his school robes quietly, and wishes he hadn't been quite so quick to dismiss the trolley lady.

He climbs out onto the platform with the other first years, and immediately spots Marlene McKinnon, who only scowls at him again. He ignores her and follows the half-giant, carefully avoiding conversation with anybody.

On the enchanted boat, with Hogwarts looming above them, framed by the clouds and the moonlight, Sirius sits next to a boy apparently just as quiet as Sirius himself. Sirius, uninterested in the view of Hogwarts, watches the boy's look of awe from the corner of his eye and, for some reason, feels compelled to talk to him. 

"I'm Sirius," he says. "Sirius Black."

The boy turns to look at him, his cheeks flushed and his eyes bright. "Remus Lupin," the boy replies. "Isn't it amazing?"

Sirius eyes the castle doubtfully, having to crane his neck as the boats pull in to shore. A tendril of anxiety starts to wrap its way up his stomach. "Yeah," he says. "Sure."

But even Sirius has to admit that he's amazed as he walks into the Great Hall for the first time, he and Remus side by side. His eyes are fixed on the ceiling, the low clouds hanging some way above his and the stars peeking through. He's so distracted that he's seized with something close to terror when they stop at the head of the Great Hall and his eyes fall on the Sorting Hat. He takes a deep, shaking breath as the witch with the stern expression starts to read off a list of names. 

Emilie likes her surname. She thinks it sounds interesting, exciting and a little bit exotic. Its boring reality - that her great-grandfather had been Italian - is irrelevant. It's cooler than Potter, at least.

As she stands among the other first years at the head of the Great Hall, the whole rest of the school watching them with interest and Professor McGonagall reading off the list of names alphabetically, she isn't so sure. 

The anxiety stuck in her throat as she convinces herself that everyone is watching _her_ , that they all _know_ that she'll be the very last of the bunch. She watches as Lily is sorted into Gryffindor, then James, and cautions a glance at the table directly behind her. Of all the houses, Gryffindor, with their big words and bigger personalities, frightens her the most. Her hands are trembling when she's the last one standing up in front of the whole school, and finally, finally, her name is called. 

Every pair of eyes in the enormous room is fixed on her. She almost trips on her way up and, once she's sat safely on the rickety stool, the hat promptly falls over her eyes. Her cheeks burn as peals of laughter come from every direction. She adjusts it slightly, looking at Lily and James, who are sat opposite one another at the Gryffindor table.

"Gryffindor, is it?" a voice suddenly says. Emilie jumps, and realises with a start that the Sorting Hat is talking to her alone. She panics, and the Hat laughs. "Nothing to be frightened of, nothing scary at all... Yes... And Hogwarts is going to need all the warriors it can get, given what's brewing..." Emilie is hardly listening, glancing desperately at the Hufflepuff table. "No, there's nothing to be done for it." Then, the voice echoing across the Great Hall, "Gryffindor!"

Gryffindor's table shakes with roars as Emilie forces one foot in front of the other, wondering how many corners of the castle are available for her to hide.

"We won!" a heavy-set older boy says, leaning across the table to shake Emilie's hand vigorously.

"Won what?" James asks, also shaking Emilie's hand. 

"We got the last student sorted. Nice one, Zabini."

"Do we actually win anything?" he asks brightly.

"No," the girl replies, turning back to her friends. "It's the principle of the thing."

So the Gryffindor first years - James, Emilie, Lily, Marlene, Remus, Peter, and Sirius - all look at each other. Marlene tries for a smile. Sirius looks miserable. Then the food appears, and James says, "Well, then."

And on the 1st of September, 1971, the rest of their lives begin. 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed! The next update will hopefully be uploaded this Hallowe'en. In the meantime, I can be found @dreamdwellers on Tumblr. Let me know what you all thought of the chapter :)


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